Reverb10: Things

This post is part of the online initiative of  Reverb10. One prompt a day for each day of December. You can find all of my Reverb10 posts here .

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Prompt: 11 Things. What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011?
How will you go about eliminating them?
How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?

1. Regret. I want to stop feeling regret over lost friendships, wasted time and missed opportunities. I want to focus less on what I don’t have, and more on what I have.

2. Worry. If you let me, I will worry myself silly over little things. I think I’ve become much better in the last couple of years about trying not to worry so much, but I definitely want to continue on this path in 2011.

3. Drama. Some people are so exhausting. Seriously, I can really do without the drama that surrounds certain people. It’s not always easy, but I want to eliminate the contact with people who always have to be the center of attention and who always pretend to have bigger  problems than anyone else. Well, I have news for you: we all have problems. Get over it.

4. False promises. I really try to tell people not to promise anything to me anymore. I hate broken promises with a passion. If you want to come out to California to visit, then do it. Or don’t. But don’t promise me you will and then never follow through. I am so over that. I’d much rather be surprised by an unexpected turn of events than disappointed by false promises.

5. Stress. I know that a lot of the stress that I feel sometimes I create for myself. It’s not possible to completely eliminate stress from one’s life, but I am hoping to find better techniques to reduce the stress that is self-induced.

6. Self-doubt. I believe, I can fake it well a lot of the time, but internally I am constantly battling my own ego. It makes me question whether I am smart enough, creative enough, good enough. Next year, I want to focus on giving myself more credit, seeing things for what they are and believing in my own abilities a little more.

7. Clutter. I know that a lot of the clutter that I have at home is not really clutter (as in “needs to be thrown out”), I just don’t have a place to put a lot of my stuff. We need a bigger apartment and more closets/shelves to properly organize and put stuff away. Moving to a bigger apartment is high on my priority list in 2011.

8. Pressure. I could really do without the pressure that not only others, but also mainly I put on myself. I want to practice to say “it’s enough” and “no more”. I want to feel content with how things are and not create unnecessary pressure in trying to change things to how I how I think they should be.

9. Processed Food. We’ve been really good about not eating out as much in the last few months and I’ve been trying to cook from scratch as often as possible. Still, some processed foods still find their way into our freezer and fridge and I want to try to reduce the amount of processed foods that I buy even more.

10. Saying “Yes” all the time. In 2011, I’ll be practicing to say “no”. I’ll say no to things that I don’t want to do (and not feel bad about it), to things that I feel obligated to do, but really don’t have to do, and to things that stretch thin my time and resources. As much as I like to be a people pleaser, a healthy dose of “no” is imperative to be happy and to be able to function properly.

11. Perfection. It’s impossible to achieve perfection. The beauty is to find perfection in the imperfections of every day life.